Carmageddon is coming

originally posted by: hopenotfeariswhatweneed
a reply to: seagull

I hear ya, I'm willing to give these companies the benefit of the doubt, companies like Mercedes have a track record of producing great stuff.

I'm betting they solve the distance and toxicity issues over the next decade.

What we need is a new propulsion system / energy source. Batteries are a real dud because they are too limiting in terms of weight and space, too toxic and have a finite lifespan.

As I mentioned, Tesla's wireless electricity transmission would be perfect for cars. No onboard batteries needed, no problems with a lack of range, no waiting to charge, just draw the energy out of the atmosphere and go.

en.wikipedia.org...

a reply to: markosity1973


I agree batteries are awful right now, they will improve drastically once the time and effort are put in to them though, the preliminary tech looks great, and will get better and better.

If I understand this correctly we will see major change in the next 5 years and personally I look forward to seeing it. I am not a city slicker, for me range is vital and I welcome any advancement in this area.

originally posted by: VengefulGhost
will stick with my non computerised , petrol burning , manual transmission , convertible , sportscar .

You can have the wimpy , computerised , electric piece of # .

Is that you Ugg?

a reply to: biggilo

You looking for ugg 👢.

It'll be a long time before there's infrastructure in place to support wide scale adoption of purely electric (not hybrid) vehicles. My company had some pure electric SUVs as a trial exercise and they spent about 90% of their time plugged into standard outlets to charge them.

Just a little thought exercise with an average electric car using 50kWh of energy per day and 100% efficient charging using a household general purpose outlet rated at 2.5kW means 20 hours/day at max load required to replace the 50kWh. The batteries being promoted can be charged much faster than that (like under 1 hour) but that means a min 50kW extra load which is approx 10x the diversified peak demand of the average domestic dwelling. Simply put, just 100000 of these cars in a single city would increase the daily electrical usage by around 5 gigawatt hours and that's not all going to come from clean sources - it appears clean only because the pollution is somewhere out of sight for most users.

What I see happening is the entire concept of privately owned and operated vehicles coming under threat in the not too distant future.

a reply to: Pilgrum

What I see happening is the entire concept of privately owned and operated vehicles coming under threat in the not too distant future.

Well ok thanks for addressing the elephant in the room.

With current technology I fear you may be right, and what a great control paradigm it would be.

I get the impression that this gap in technology will be filled and its only a matter of time, if my hunch is correct 5 years we will see significant change and from there it will be a rollercoaster.

a reply to: hopenotfeariswhatweneed

Energy storage and efficient usage is the easy part with significant improvements progressing nicely. The hard part is where is all the energy coming from to supply an armada of electric vehicles even if they achieve 100% efficiency. Wind and solar are only partial solutions when the weather is agreeable so it'll come down to the old coal, gas, oil and nuclear options to provide the extra base load.

a reply to: Pilgrum


Indeed coal power is fueling the electric car and will continue to do so until some kind of tony stark materializes into our lives.

originally posted by: NeuronDivide
I'm all for it, and the sooner the better! Cars are literally a money drain.

I think I might let other people test out self-driving technology for a while, though

And you know, people who live in rural areas can just suck it because who cares about a bunch of stubborn hillbillies anyway right?

www.telegraph.co.uk...

Looks like the government will ban the sale of new petrol and diesel cars in the uk from 2040.
That should make things go faster.


Speaking from a biker perspective, especially one who is into the whole chop culture thing, as more vehicles hit the road and get scrapped following crashes etc. There ought to be more openings for individuals to buy cheap traction motors and batteries and create their own vehicles soon.

Right now, I can go round the scrappies and, for a few hundred quid, build my own bike from bits.

You think what you could do with one motor off, say a Tesla, a hardtail frame and a set of wheels....Could be a hell of a lot of fun to be had with this new tech.

Let's save time and money and put the mass transportation systems we had in place before cars showed up, back in place.

I'm not talking about horses and wagons. I'm talking about trains and trolley cars and bicycle / pedestrian right of ways trails.

Oil is running out and we don't and won't have the petroleum to produce the components for an electric car for everyone to have personal access to.

Of course there are those of you who somehow think that driving is a freedom thing...It Ain't...

a reply to: MyHappyDogShiner

I actually agree with you on that.

I've spent most of this thread pointing out the shortfalls of electric for country people, but my town and most others in my area have disused railway lines that once connected to each other and into the national network.

I would quite happily catch an electric train to town and would love a bullet train service to the big cities. Bringing trains back would also breathe some life back into these little hamlets.

In fact I would go as far to say that if the train lines came back to life and ran regularly, I could reduce my private car use right now as in from today to just on my days off.